William Kelley

Educator and Innovator

About William Kelley

For more than two decades, William Kelley, MD, has been on the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Medicine as a professor of medicine and a professor of biochemistry and biophysics. Dr. William Kelley also served as the dean of the School of Medicine from 1989 to 2000 and as the first chief executive officer of the University of Pennsylvania Health System from 1993 to 2000.

As an undergraduate, Dr. William Kelley attended Emory University’s College of Arts and Sciences in Atlanta. He obtained his medical degree from Emory and a master’s degree (honorary) from the University of Pennsylvania. After graduating from medical school, Dr. Kelley completed an internship and residency in internal medicine at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas and the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston as well as training in rheumatology and genetics at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda.

Over the course of his career, Dr. William Kelley has established a superb reputation as an educator, clinician, and innovator. Prior to accepting a position at the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Kelley served as a professor and chair of the University of Michigan’s Department of Internal Medicine, where he cocreated the concept of in vivo gene therapy. In recognition of his work, the National Health Council presented Dr. Kelley with the National Medical Research Award. Dr. Kelley and colleagues also hold a patent on the “Viral-Mediated Gene Transfer System,” which was submitted in 1987 and issued in 1997.